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Textile Icon Roger Milliken passed away today. I’ve had the privilege to work for the company he helped make one of the best private companies in the world for over 10 years now. I met and spoke with him many times in my career. There will not be another man like him!

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Sun-N-FunThe "Oshkosh of the south" kicks off today in grand fashion. Garmin has already made some impressive announcements with regards to the new synthetic vision system in the G1000. Liberty Aerospace and Aspen Avionics have announced a partnership to include the new Evolution Pro PFD as standard equipment in the IFR trainer version of the XL-2. This is just the beginning. I expect to hear other major announcements as the event progresses.

Red Bull Air RaceThe Red Bull Air Race kicks off the 2008 season this weekend in Abu Dhabi. Mike Mangold will be defending his 2007 championship in front of a crowd of thousands! This year also brings the event to the United States twice – a new venue in Detroit and a returning visit to San Diego. With newcomer Glen Dell from South Africa joining the group of 12 pilots, things are surely shaping up to be another great year of competition!

Master’s Golf TournamentYou may be asking what this has to do with aviation, but this time every year, three airports in the CSRA (that’s the Central Savannah River Valley) swell with activity due to the Master’s Golf Tournament. Thomson-McDuffie County (KHQU), Daniel Field (KDNL), and Augusta Bush Field (KAGS) all become quite active with everything from single-engine Cessnas to Gulfstreams. Augusta is about an hour drive from where I live. If I can find time before my trip to Seattle, I’d like to take my daughter to see the action.

Trip to Seattle for the MVP SummitSpeaking of that trip … I leave on Sunday morning out of Charlotte (KCLT) for Seattle via Delta Airlines. I am from Greenwood, SC – closer proximity to Greenville/Spartanburg (KGSP) and about 2.5 hours away from Atlanta (KATL). So why fly out of Charlotte (also about 2.5 hours drive) and not Greenville/Spartanburg or Atlanta? I looked up fares from both of those fields, and was floored at the price difference! The flight out of KGSP was nearly $300 more than out of Charlotte! It is nearly $200 cheaper for me to fly from Charlotte to Atlanta, and then to Seattle than a direct flight (on the very same flight number no less) from Atlanta to Seattle. Delta is expending more fuel to get me to my destination and yet are charging me less. Does that sound like "green" activity to you? Just because the flight from Atlanta to Seattle is a direct flight, it is considered a "luxury" therefore fares are more. No wonder airlines are going under. Anyway, I’ll be pretty busy next week. I hope to get a lot of great pictures to share once I return!

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While doing some sleuthing on some HTML code, I managed to figure out how to get line spacing working. It’s actually CSS code that I didn’t realize worked on Spaces (until I tried it). I used Time Magazine for a template. I’ve converted a few of my most recent blog entries and I’ll be sure to utilize this from here on out.

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In my piracy post, I made mention of the Flight 1 wrapper in an inappropriate manner which to some was conveyed in a negative light. That was not my original intent and therefore I have removed all reference to it. I hope Steve Halpern and the rest of the Flight1 team accept my sincere apology. The point I was trying to convey was that it really doesn’t matter what vehicle is used for e-commerce distribution – there are going to be pirates out there who will figure out a way to share illegally the content, and I stress the word content.

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It is funny thing how the internet works. I was browsing my statistics page the other day, and saw where someone had linked to my blog via a website that I had not heard of (at that moment) called blogged.com. Intrigued, I chose to follow the link and low-and-behold, there is a page with my blog listed! There are hundreds of thousands of blogs listed there in all sorts of categories. How mine #1) got listed on blogged.com and #2) ended up in the graphics section is beyond me. I guess I really don’t fit in any single category very well and I do tend to have more graphical in-game renders on my posts than most, so I can’t really argue too much.

In the left pane, I’ve got a "I’ve been blogged" icon that you can follow – there you can write a brief review of my blog. I’ve currently got a 7.6 rating by the editor – not where I’d like it to be, but I’ll take it. What’ll you say … will you throw me a bone?

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I was deeply saddened by the news I stumbled upon this evening about the tragic helicopter accident that claimed the life of Colin McRae and 3 others on-board, including his 5-yr-old son. I have been a fan of the Codemasters’ series of rally games named after Colin since the very first version that I had to buy as an import from the UK in 1998. I have owned every version since as I have always enjoyed the virtual rally experience of driving. I was surprised that Codemasters dropped Colin’s name from the product with the latest version of their rally software called DiRT. Did they know something we didn’t?

My condolences to the McRae family in this time of shock. Colin was instrumental in introducing the world to the

WRC and bringing the Subaru Impreza into the spotlight as a competitive platform for the WRC, which it remains to this day. Rest in peace Colin.

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Every once in a while I’ll run across something so impressive and ground-breaking that I’ve got to spread the word about it. This afternoon was one of those moments, and its name is Photosynth by Microsoft Live Labs.

Microsoft Live Labs is a collection of scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs who are interested in improving the online world. They have developed some really incredible web applications that will revolutionize the way we view images on the web. Photosynth can be test-driven on the web right now. Go check it out. You will be amazed.

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Yes, long time, no post. I decided to take a bit of a break from the computer over the weekend, catching up on a lot of things around the house in preparation for a dinner party Christy and I hosted Sunday night. It went very well, and now that the house is looking good, I’m back to work. On what you ask? I just completed revising the paink kit for the FSX Columbia, and I am uploading it to Ron as I type. Hopefully it will be a short time before Ron is able to post it. It is quite substantially larger in size that the traditional paint kits due to the fact that I have included specular maps. Next on my plate with ESDG is continuing on with the Citation X 2.0 and finalizing the paint on the Twin Comanche. Onward and upward!

[EDIT] Ron has just posted the paint kit for the FSX Columbia 400 on the downloads page.

Here are some interesting aviation headlines that I’ve run across browsing the web this morning…